


Like Nothing That I Ever Knew

by kay_emm_gee



Series: Hands In, Aca-Bitches! [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Music, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Singing, a capella
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 00:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5607127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_emm_gee/pseuds/kay_emm_gee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wells can sing, and Raven sort of can’t get his voice out of her head. Soon, she can’t get him out of her life either, though, really, she wouldn’t mind him sticking around. Maybe. Just a little bit. Okay–a lot, she would like him sticking around a lot. Good thing he seems to be on board with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Nothing That I Ever Knew

“No.” Raven glared at Wick, who just grinned at her and leaned farther forward on her workbench.

“I haven’t even told you what the favor is yet.”

“No, Wick. Just no.”

“Please.”

“ _No._ ”

“It isn’t even for me. It’s for Monty.”

Raven narrowed her eyes at him. “Cheater.”

“Nobody can turn down Monty,” Wick agreed.

“What does ‘Monty’ need?”

“Our favorite freshman engineering major has decided to participate in the one-week musical that Dramat puts on every year. It’s Legally Blonde, by the way.”

“Seriously?”

“Jasper joined because he’s crushing on this freshman who’s doing costumes and Monty joined also just to see him flail about trying to sing.”

Snorting, Raven couldn’t resist a smile. From the few time Jasper had accompanied Monty to the engineering parties, she knew he was both tone-deaf and uncoordinated. This show was going to be a riot. “I’d join too just to see that.”

“Well, that’s what I’m here about. They need people to help with the sets.”

“Are you designing them?”

“They wanted the best,” Wick said with a smirk.

“Oh, then you’re not designing them. Gotcha.”

“Funny, Reyes. Real funny. So are you going to help out, or not?”

She pursed her lips, letting her gaze drift up to the ceiling in mock contemplation. Wick huffed, pushing off the table and folding his arms over his chest.

“It’s for Monty,” he said in a sarcastic, sing-song voice.

“Fine,” Raven relented, then pointed her finger at him. “But it better not interfere with Battle Bot practice.”

Wick–who was the other team captain, a college senior to her junior–clutched his hand over his chest in mock outrage. “Who do you think I am? I know my priorities!”

“Good. Then yes, I will help.”

“First meeting with the director is at four tomorrow.” He saluted her before sauntering out of the room whistling.

Raven sighed, wondering what fresh hell she had just gotten herself into.

* * *

Working behind the scenes on a musical, especially one that was put up in only a week, was _annoying._ Everybody sang, every minute of every hour, and it was all damn show tunes. And Raven was spending a lot of hours behind the scenes, because she was a good friend, damn it, and kept her word, especially when Monty continually thanked her whenever he passed her in the dim rooms backstage. As the theater’s shop room was right behind the stage, she could hear the cast practicing while she worked, even over the buzz of the saw or the whine of the drills.

One voice in particular, booming and smooth, cut through every other sound. It belonged to the guy who played Emmett, and from what limited experience Raven had with musicals, she could tell he was _good._ Not just good in the sense of got-the-lead-in-a-student-produced-musical good, but truly-had-professional-potential good. The girl who played Elle (blonde, obviously, but not the Barbie doll you’d expect) had a voice that mixed well with his, but she didn’t quite match his skill. Raven hated to admit it, because she had so many unnecessary lyrics stuck in her head now (thank you, Wick, for also playing the soundtrack during their bots practice that week, the ass), but she found she didn’t _quite_ mind humming along to Emmett’s songs every now and then.

* * *

She didn’t find out the singer’s name until the premiere night. She and Wick had been given front-row tickets in thanks for their help. Wick, the nerd that he was, showed up in an actual suit, staring in mock disdain at Raven’s usual attire of jeans, T-shirt, and puffy vest.

“Disgraceful,” he muttered mockingly as they found their seats. “Show some pride in our comrades’ efforts.”

“Half the cast is already drunk,” Raven retorted, flicking the side of his head for good measure. “Jasper looks like he might throw up, and since we’re in the splash zone, I’m not going to risk him ruining a dress I actually like.”

She laughed at the vaguely horrified look on Wick’s face, though she smothered the rest of her amusement when the lights went down, signaling the start of the show.

 _Oh, hell,_ she thought resignedly when Emmett first came on stage, her pulse jumping the second his voice filled the theater, rich and deep and heartstopping. He looked even better under the stage lights than she had expected from the brief glimpses she had caught from the wings during practice, his grin brilliant, his presence magnetizing.

She couldn’t keep calling him Emmett, though, so she tugged the program out of Wick’s hand. Using the limited light of the stage, she glanced down at the cast list.

 **Elle Woods** ………………………….Clarke Griffin  
**Warner Huntington III** …………….Dax Goodwin  
**Vivienne Kensington** ……………..Roma Archer  
**Emmett Forrest** ……………………Wells Jaha

So she walked out of the theater that night knowing his name, but, disappointedly, not knowing if she would see him again.

* * *

**Monty Green** invited you to the event **Acapella Fall Sampler Extravaganza!**

Raven sighed, finger hovering over her trackpad. Generally she thought acapella was for stuck-up, polo shirt-wearing assholes because she was judgemental, alright? (Also Finn had been really into listening to acapella in high school, so maybe she was a little bit biased in her bitterness.) Still, Monty was her friend, and he had been one of the only freshman to make it onto Waldentones, which apparently was impressive, according to Wick.

Wick was going, as was Jasper, for Monty but also for that costume girl–Octavia somebody, Raven remembered–because she was also on the attendee list. One of the posts with a reminder of the lineup was from Clarke, who apparently was part of Ark’n’Sass, the Waldentones more quirky female counterpart group.

Then one of the event’s promotional pictures caught her eye, sporting a familiar face.

_Wells._

With one click, her newsfeed read:

 **Raven Reyes** is attending **Acapella Fall Sampler Extravaganza!**

* * *

Raven sipped from her solo cup, leaning against the wall. She eyed the warbling crowd gathered in dorm room suite with wariness. She should’ve expected this; Monty and Jasper had dragged her to an acapella party after all. She just really thought they wouldn’t be this cliche to sing practically all night.

Tipping her cup backwards even farther, she lost sight of the crowd for a second, but when she stopped seeing amber beer and red-tinted plastic, she saw Wells instead.

“You alright?” He asked, stepping closer as she choked on her drink.

“Fine,” Raven replied, licking the last of the beer off her lips. She fought a smile when she saw Wells’ gaze linger on her mouth for a second before flicking back up to her face.

“I’m Wells,” he said, sticking out his hand.

She regarded it with amusement, but didn’t stick out her own. “I know. I’m Raven.”

“I know.”

“What?” She blurted, caught off guard.

“Monty told me.”

She glanced across the room at the rowdy, red-cheeked boy who had his head thrown back, yelling out lyrics to some song about a wagon wheel. When he caught her eye through disheveled too-long black bangs, he paused, grinning sheepishly with a little guilty wave. Raven rolled her eyes, ignoring the way her cheeks started to feel warm. It was something she very much wanted to blame on the beer but couldn’t quite manage to, because she knew it was the way Wells was now leaning his hand against the wall next to her head.

“So what are you–”

Wells was interrupted by a surly guy with sharp features and broad shoulders who barged into their conversation and their personal space. “Either of you know Octavia?”

“Seriously, asshole?” Raven snapped. “Back up.”

He huffed impatiently. “Do you know Octavia? Is she here?”

Wells frowned, but the guy’s gaze snapped to someone else across the room. “Princess!” He shouted as he moved away towards a familiar, now-scowling blonde. “Where’s my sister?”

“So that’s Bellamy,” Wells muttered under her breath. “Clarke sure does know how to pick ‘em.”

“You know that guy?” Raven asked dubiously.

“Not really. Just–he’s an acquaintance of a friend of mine.”

“Elle Woods?”

“You saw our show!”

Raven ducked her head, hiding her own smile that formed in response to Wells’ wide, pleased grin.

“Maybe,” she murmured slyly. “I had to make sure that damn staircase held up.”

“Ah, you’re the genius set builder.”

Her head jerked up then and met his amused gaze. “Smooth talker,” she quipped. “Should be expected from an acapella boy.”

“Or I’m just nice.”

“Nice,” she commented dryly as he wavered closer to her, her nerves alight with anticipation. “Right.”

“I’m very–”

The sounds of shouting suddenly overpowered the dwindling, drunken singing.

“Ah, shit,” Wells sighed, pulling away reluctantly. Raven followed his exasperated stare to the fighting trio–the rude guy from earlier, a small pissed-off brunette, and the blonde.

A hand to her wrist, a grimacing apologetic smile, and then Wells was gone, striding towards his friend who had stubbornly stepped in between the other two, screaming as loud as the guy.

Raven gulped down the last of her drink, dropping the cup on a nearby table before heading for the exit. The echo of shouts–angry, drunken, joyful, melodious–cut off as the door slammed shut behind her.

So she knew his name, how his fingers felt around her wrist.

That was enough, she figured. She didn’t dare expect more.

* * *

“Hey.”

At her table in the student union cafe, Raven looked up from the code on her screen and tried to stop her eyes from widening. Wells was standing there, leather jacket and cup of coffee in his hand looking damn good and too friendly for her liking.

“Hey,” she said shortly, eyes darting away from his hesitant grin. She didn’t know quite what he was doing here, smiling at her.

“It’s Wells? From the party–”

“I know.”

“We’ve been here before,” he joked.

“Yeah.”

“So,” he drawled, joviality working its way into his smile. “You come here often?”

She rolled her eyes but couldn’t help laughing too. If anyone other person had used that line, she would’ve told them to fuck off _._ From Wells, it just sounded–well, cute.

“I do come here often.”

He knocked his knuckles on the table. “Then maybe I’ll see you around more. Get you a coffee sometime.”

He sauntered of humming some jazzy tune, jolting Raven out of her surprise.

“Maybe I’ll get _you_ a coffee!” She called after him, more snappish than she intended.

He just spun around, still smiling. “I’d like that.”

* * *

Pretty much every time she saw Wells after that, he was smiling.

He smiled as he asked to sit down at her table. When she nodded a curt yes, he just pulled out a book and read without saying another word until she packed up her computer and left, telling her _bye Raven._

He smiled when he ran into her in the library, when he passed by her in a random dorm hallway one weekend night, when their eyes met across the salad bar in the cafeteria.

Always fucking _smiling._

“Yeah, that’s just how he is,” Monty said with a shrug while they were playing video games one Saturday afternoon.

“It’s annoying is what it is,” Raven grumbled.

Monty snickered, and Jasper laughed outright.

“Shut it,” she said, reaching up to smack Jasper in the shin.

It cost her the game, but he kept his amusement to himself the rest of the night, which was reward enough for her.

* * *

She was eating dinner with Monty and Wick when Wells set his tray down across from her. Another tray landed next to his, and he and the blonde–Clarke, Raven recalled–sat down.

“Hey Clarke,” Monty greeted. “Wells.”

“Mind if we join you?” Wells asked, as he picked up his fork.

“A little late for that,” Clarke commented wryly, nudging his elbow. It knocked the peas off his fork, and he huffed.

Raven flicked a careful glance at them. She knew they weren’t dating, rather best friends; she hadn’t been too proud to check with Monty (and double-check by creeping on Facebook) after that night at the party. Still, she wasn’t sure why Clarke was looking at her curiously, intensely.

The conversation eventually distracted her from that fact, especially when Game of Thrones came up. Clarke loosened up a bit when she chimed in to support Raven’s fervent defense of both Arya and Sansa, even leaning over to give her a high five when they rendered Wick speechless.

She wasn’t quite as friendly, though, when she followed her up to get dessert.

“He’s going to ask you out, you know,” Clarke said evenly as they stared at the ice cream options.

Raven’s gaze halted somewhere between mint chocolate chip and butter pecan. “Did you decide to do it for him?”

Clarke snorted. “I’ll leave the hard part to him. I’m just giving you a heads up.”

“Not for my benefit, though,” Raven commented lightly, knowingly.

At that, the blonde girl turned and stared at Raven, expression serious. “He’s a good person, and he likes you. Monty says you’re also a good person, but Wells is _my_ person. So–go out with him, or don’t, but–”

“Treat him right or you’ll hunt me down and do something unspeakable?”

Clarke smiled, and Raven resisted doing the same, deciding to reach for a bowl instead. “What’s his favorite flavor?”

“Rum Raven.”

The other girl managed to keep a straight face for a split second before bursting out into laughter. Raven groaned, then chuckled too.

“It’s chocolate chip, by the way,” Clarke said, scooping herself a bowl of butter pecan. “That’s his favorite.”

Back at the table, when Raven unceremoniously plopped the bowl of ice cream down in front of Wells, who jerked his gaze up to her in surprise, she flexed a tight smile at him.

“For me?” He asked in delight.

“She even guessed your favorite too,” Clarke added with a quick, deliberate, teasing eyebrow raise at Raven.

She swallowed tightly as Wells looked at his best friend with exasperation then her with affection.

“Thanks.”

She shrugged. “Whatever.”

* * *

He did ask her out, and she said yes, and he took her to an actual restaurant, for actual dinner. Conversation had been easy, and quick, and she found out that while he did tons of theater in his free time, he wanted to go to law school for family law. He asked all the right questions, good questions, interesting questions about her mechanical engineering work, not afraid to ask her explain things or elaborate. He also _actually_ walked her home, and only did that, afterwards. The only goodnight he gave her was warmly spoken, from a foot away, not even against her lips like she wanted.

“Who the fuck does he think he is?” She spat out as she fought to untwist a bolt on her latest bot.

“A gentleman,” Wick retorted. “And you don’t need to loosen that one. Do the one two over.”

“You’re an idiot. It has to be this one–your designs just don’t match up.”

“You going to see him again?”

“What business of that is yours?”

“You’re the one who started the girl talk.”

She threw a bolt at him, and he grunted when it bounced off his shoulder.

“His friend is hot.”

“I think she’s spoken for.”

“Damn,” Wick sighed. “All the good ones are gone.”

“Of course. ‘Cause we’re awesome.”

Her friend chuckled, and her chest warmed at the realization that she considered herself not just one of the awesome ones, but one of the lucky too, because even after one date, she knew there weren’t many guys out there like Wells.

* * *

A month of dinners, coffee dates, Netflix marathons, afternoons spent watching musicals and battle bot competitions that turned to making out on the couch passed, and then one night, Wells finally didn’t get up from the couch at a respectable hour. He kept his arm around her, and when Raven nuzzled closer, he exhaled heavily, his fingers playing with the end of her ponytail. She waited a beat, glancing up at him from under her eyelashes. His fingers grazed against her back, and then she was the one exhaling.

“Hey,” she murmured as she straightened up and swung a leg over, straddling his lap.

“Hey.” His hands banded around her hips, sliding up to her ribcage, large and hot and greedy.

She kissed him, and he kissed her back with more–more fire, more wanting, more insistence. And that’s how they continued, matching each other’s motions, first fast and sloppy, then teasing, torturous, eventually sliding towards slow and sweet once they were in Raven’s bed.

After, with her head on his bare chest, she felt two rhythms beating in him. One was from his heartbeat, slow and steady and deep. The other was from the melody he was humming, and it vibrated around in his chest. Then he started singing, barely audible, right against the top of her head.

“ _When I see you smile_ , _I can face the world, oh oh oh-oh, you know I could do anything…”_

Oh so predictably, a smile spread across her face, which she buried in his chest, embarrassed at how much her cheeks were flushing. Wells chuckled, and his singing grew a little bit louder.

“ _When I see you smile, I see a ray of light–_ ,” he paused, then started up again, “ _I see a Ray-ven of light, oh oh–_ ”

She gently slapped his chest, and he huffed amusedly.

“So it’s you Clarke gets the bad puns from,” she teased.

“Yes. I am the bad influence.”

“Knew it. You’re not that nice.”

“No, I’m not.” Then he banded his arms around her and pulled her in closer, letting out a happy sigh. “You’re the ray of sunshine in this relationship.”

“Don’t–”

“I mean, _Ray_ -ven of sunshine.”

Raven groaned, and Wells laughed again, a bright sound that she couldn’t help but echo eventually.

“So this is a relationship?” She asked after a beat of silence.

“Yeah,” he breathed, sounding nervous and happy at the same time. “It could be.”

“Good.”

She fell asleep in his arms, lulled by the sound of his singing, for the first time ever that night, but it felt like she had done it before, comfortable as it was, and like she would do it again, a hundred times over.

* * *

Raven was sitting in the student union, books spread everywhere over the too-small table she was camped out at. Finals weren’t for a few weeks, but she needed to get a jumpstart, since she was taking an extra class this semester. She had her headphones in, which is why she didn’t see the start of it. The only thing that alerted her to the spectacle was the rose that suddenly fell across her textbook page about linear versus non-linear system models.

“What the hell?” She said as she tore out her headphones.

A boy wearing a collared shirt and tie stood above her, grinning and snapping his fingers in time to the melody he was humming.

Another rose soon came, as did another humming boy. She squinted at him, because he looked familiar.

Two roses later, and she was scowling, whipping around in her seat to find her idiot boyfriend.

“He is in _so_ much trouble,” she grumbled at the singing boys, whom she had identified as members of the Waldentones. They just grinned at her wider without breaking the beat.

“So much trouble!” She yelled, despite the gathered, giddy crowd, pointing accusingly at a giggling Clarke who had popped up with her phone out, no doubt filming this horrendous spectacle.

Her cheeks were flaming by the time Monty appeared, _bom-bom-_ ing louder than the rest.

“Traitor,” she said through gritted teeth, and he couldn’t keep it together. He laughed, but he was back on beat by the time Wells appeared from around the corner.

“Where were you all hiding? The bathroom? Behind the counter?” She asked him, head tipped up as he towered over her. “Probably broke some sanitation laws. You’re a delinquent now. How will you ever get into law school with such a record?”

Wells just broke into the first verse of that goddamn song about her smile, even using that god-awful pun from their first night of sleeping together.

By the time he was done, the boys all had their hands extended, wiggling in the worst impression of jazz hands she’s ever seen–and she wasn’t even the theater enthusiast in the room. Wells was actually down on one knee in front of her, smiling as forcefully as she was scowling.

“Go to the junior-senior formal with me?” He asked in a winded voice once the song had finished.

She wanted to continue glaring at him, but between the smile, and his voice ( _fuck her_ , seriously) still lingering in her ear, she primly said, “You’re lucky I love you.”

Wells chuckled, though she cut him off quickly with a sloppy kiss. The crowd cheered and whistled, but after a minute, she heard Clarke trying to disperse them–effectively, of course, because it was Clarke.

“I’m so lucky you love me,” her boyfriend murmured against her mouth when she pulled away with a shy grin.

“Yeah, you’re the lucky one,” Raven laughed as she twined her hand with his. “I just get the theater nerd with a penchant for public displays of affection.”

“You love my singing,” Wells said archly as he stood, tugging her up with him.

Raven sighed with feigned exasperation, looping her free arm around his neck. “Eh. Just a little.”

Still smiling, he leaned down and whisper-sung in her ear.

_Love me tender,_

_love me true._

_All my dreams fulfilled–_

Raven cut him off, finishing in her own raspy, rarely used tune, _For my darlin’ I love you._

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a bunch of things, including some traditions from my own alma mater.


End file.
